Panel discussion
Plankton and drill head

An image-amplified discursive event discussing Norway’s carbon modernity

To, 05.11.2020 19:00 - 21:00 Kunsthall Trondheim

This hybrid online and offline salon at Kunsthall Trondheim will discuss the ambivalences produced by fossil resource extraction for the Norwegian national narrative. Cultural theorists Alexander Klose and Benjamin Steininger will guide a conversation with invited participants, activating historical and contemporary film excerpts, exhibition programmes, advertisements, company anthems and design competitions. The aim of the event is to share knowledge and opinions from the fields of cultural theory, art, science and technology, both from Norway and abroad. Together, the participants will speculate on the technical, social and geographical position of Norway in the (post-)petromodern era. 

This event will focus from a petrocultural-comparative perspective on questions such as: How does the Norwegian society cope with these ambivalent moves? How does it culturally represent its petromodern legacy? What are the grand narratives that were established to lead Norway into petromodernity and beyond? Have they changed?
 
Participants:
Ellinor Marita Jåma, Director of Sami Raindeer Herder's Association Norway

Julia Leyda, Professor of Film Studies, Department of Art and Media Studies, NTNU Trondheim

Siri Granum Carson, Director, NTNU Oceans

Finn Sandberg: Civil engineer, Marine technologist and previously academic director at the Norwegian Petroleum Museum

In an imaginary museum (musée imaginaire) of the Norwegian history of extraction, a competition published by the Bank of Norway in 2014, calling for a new banknote design, could play a central role. The submitted sketches depict Norway oriented towards the sea seen as an elementary space, a space of extraction and a molecular space of microorganisms and chemical compounds. They also show the relation between oil technology and economic wealth.
 
The event is a collaboration between Kunsthall Trondheim and the Goethe-Institut Oslo with the research collective Beauty of Oil (Alexander Klose, Benjamin Steininger), Berlin/Vienna.